On Nov. 10, Bolivian President Evo Morales was forced to resign after a military coup.
Evo Morales was a socialist and the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Since taking office in 2006, Morales worked to transform the country for the betterment of the people, growing the GDP by 50 percent, reducing poverty by 42 percent and extreme poverty by 60 percent, cutting unemployment in half and increasing the national government revenue from hydrocarbons nearly seven-fold, according to a report from the Center for Economic and Policy Return (CEPR).
The coup was not lead by the popular demands of the people, but far-right, anti-indigenous forces. Anyone familiar with the history of Latin America will be able to see through the imperialist narrative that portrays the coup as a win for democracy. It is anything but.
Perhaps the most famous case of American imperialism is in Chile, where the CIA backed a coup to overthrow the democratically-elected President Salvador Allende and end civilian rule. In his place, the U.S. placed fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet, who placed tens of thousands in internment camps, tortured thousands of others and violently suppressed any opposition to his rule. Pinochet was just one of over a dozen U.S.-backed far-right military coups throughout Latin America in the past century. Under these violent and anti-democratic conditions, free market capitalism thrived, neoliberalism flourished for the first time, and of course, American corporations were able to exploit the land and the people of Chile.
The Bolivian people cannot afford to repeat these imperialist atrocities. Violence against indigenous people is already taking place in Bolivia as military and police forces have already killed eight anti-coup protestors, according to a report from the Associated Press.
American imperialism and interventionist foreign policy is a threat to democracies everywhere. Capitalism is funded by the bloodshed of workers and indigenous people throughout the world. It is the duty of all who care about the liberty of indigenous people, the working class and democracy to denounce the Bolivian coup and the dictatorship of Christofascist Jeanine Añez.
Solidarity with the Bolivian people. Death to imperialism.
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